Koh Phi Phi, Thailand

Koh Phi Phi Stone

The Phi Phi islands are the most beautiful I've ever seen, but it's a beauty that's only skin deep.

These jewels of the Andaman Sea are like peaks of drowned mountains and although bathed by warm azure waters and clothed in the emerald shades of tropical foliage, the hearts of these islands are as hard and ungiving as if they were the peaks of mountains that rise above the snow line.

Looking at these photographs, you might think I'm crazy, but it's true.

You won't see what I'm talking about amid the hustle and bustle of Ao Ton Sai, where the ferries from Krabi and Phuket shuttle a constant stream of ocean-dazzled travellers to and from the guesthouses and bars of the island. You won't spot it from the shaded environs of your accommodation either. Phi Phi's magnificent beaches and entrancing ocean depths distract attention from it too...

It didn't become obvious to me until Dee took us for a circumnavigation of Phi Phi Leh in his longtail boat. Phi Phi Leh is the smaller of the two islands and in my opinion is the most magnificent. It's no wonder it was chosen as a location for the filming of Alec Garland's book "The Beach".

Phi Phi Leh is gorgeous.

But you wouldn't want to have to leave that beach.

Look.

Don't touch.

Phi Phi Leh's interior is a nightmare jumble of eroded karst country pretty much impossible to traverse. The only folk who live here are those who harvest the swiftlet nests from the caves and overhangs that riddle the islands towering cliffs and that's an enterprise lucrative enough to allow its practitioners to buy in all they need to survive here. There's nowhere for them to build houses - they dwell in the same cave as the birds whose nests they harvest. They don't walk around on the island either - they work from boats.

The big island is essentially the same. It's got an expanse of accessible ground big enough for a town and enough arable land to permit some cultivation, but there's no way it could sustain the people who live there now, let alone the huge numbers that visit. It's no wonder these islands were uninhabited until quite recently. It's no surprise either, that its first settlers were fishermen - they would have shipped in everything they needed, too.

It's the ocean that makes it possible and it's the ocean that's the attraction.

The beauty of these islands is a veneer.

A reflection of the ocean, masking a heart of stone.